078 - Optimize Your SEO For Zero Click Searches

Marisa Huston  0:02  
Welcome to Episode 78 on the Live Blissed Out podcast. Did you know that over 49% of Google searches never click through to a website? It's a number that's constantly growing. Hello, action taker. Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have inspiration and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help you get the scoop on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping you achieve bliss through awareness and action. So let's get to it. Joining us is Alf Gizmo owner of Arrivo Digital Marketing. His company specializes in developing page rank, organically obtained, and delivering new prospects to local businesses. Using his vast knowledge gained from having a diverse career in a variety of positions for high tech companies, Alf has applied his array of expertise into developing a career in search engine optimization. His live one on one customized hour and a half DIY-GMB-SEO training class has proven to be one of the most successful ways to empower local businesses. Alf also wrote an e-book: Insider's Top 10 Google My Business Tips Revealed. To learn more visit www.arrivodigitalmarketing.com. The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only. And any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. Alf, it's great to have you on the show.

Alf Gizzo  1:44  
Well, thank you. This is my first podcast. I'm really excited. And thank you so much, Marisa.

Marisa Huston  1:48  
Thank you, Alf. I'm excited to talk to you today because I've never had the opportunity to discuss the topic we're going to be discussing, which is SEO. And SEO has been around for a really long time and everybody's got their own idea as to what it is. We know that we're talking about Search Engine Optimization. Sounds like a fancy word, at least it did when it started. But now most people are familiar with what that is. From my understanding, it's really techniques that are used to help people find your business. Remember, in the old days when you had those directories, and they would come to your door, and you'd have to fiddle through all those pages to find the right business for whatever it is that you needed. Now it's different, because essentially, companies are doing search engine optimization to help the search engines essentially bring your business to the forefront so that you can get found by the person that searching for whatever it is that you're offering. I'd love to hear your assessment of what SEO is and does and how its evolved.

Alf Gizzo  2:52  
Like you were saying, we were doing are searching for a business or a plumber, let's say. And you remember in the past, they'd say oh, name your business, Acme Plumbing or AAA Plumbing? Then you'd be at the top of the list of plumbers and get more calls? That was optimizing your placement in the yellow pages so you were at the top of the list. That's the same thing it is now in this internet world. It's all trying to get to the top of the search page. But now it's just like I was talking to a business in Tennessee. He was gonna name his business, AAA Leak Detection because he's thinking old school. I said no, nowadays, you want to name your business, leak detection of Tennessee. You name your business exactly what it is. If you're in the car business and your a dealer, you're selling Volvo's, the best bang for your business in your website is Volvo Sales and Service.  Just say what it is. And then that's what the search engines are looking for. And search engine optimization is optimizing your position on the search page. Everybody thinks they're getting to the first page of Google is the optimal for getting prospects, getting leads, getting engagement, getting clients, but it's evolved over the years as to how you do that. I think it's important to know just a brief history that when it started back in the 90s, you know, Yahoo and Bing, or at the time Internet Explorer and other search engines were just using an algorithm to go out and search the entire internet for websites. And when they found a website that had a lot of words and a lot of pages and a lot of pictures and the one that had the most words and the most pages and the most pictures, it says well, that's must be a pretty relevant website. We oughta put that at the top of our search list when we list out the number of businesses and several pages, websites that are most important. And when Google came along, they were saying well, how do we know just because they have a whole lot of pages it's really good information? We ought to base our search on popularity. We're going to develop an algorithm that reads how many people actually landed on that page from the internet. And that changed everything 20 years ago. So then it became a popularity contest. So if one website got more views than another website, then Google would place that higher viewed website at the top of the list. And then that algorithm began to grow. Number of pages and the amount of content is important we'll add that to the list. And it grew over the years to an algorithm that had 960 different attributes that measured like almost instantly, just amazing. And then in the summer of 2017, it expanded and grew, again with the use of supercomputers and artificial intelligence. And instead of just recognizing what the popularity of the website was, then they were looking at websites within a specific industry. So like a dentist, they'll look at all the websites and what makes one website in a dental industry, more important, or more relevant than another website. And again, when they saw an algorithm, a search algorithm, where they placed dentist on the page was based upon a very specific set of attributes for dentists. And then a very specific set of attributes that would be used, for ecommerce websites, somebody selling fashion, clothing or cosmetics, or somebody selling a manufacturer that is, has a website that has very sophisticated technical equipment, like an MRI machine, you know, for hospitals. So it's become very industry specific as to how and what you would do in your specific industry, or especially a small business, but they would need to do within that industry to achieve search engine optimization to get to the first page of Google. And then you have to analyze, is it worth it? Is there a return on the investment? Is it worthwhile to spend the time and the energy and perhaps money to try to get to the first page of Google? What does that really going to achieve for you? There are tools now online that allow you to see how many people are searching for specific types of keywords or phrases. Everybody probably knows what a keyword is. But it's important to know that it's not just a single word. It can be a phrase. It can be a question. It can be a statement. So if I'm using Google, maybe we put in you know How do I do this? Can I do that? Instead of just putting in looking for a dentist. Dentist near me is the keyword phrase. So looking at the competitors that a business has online is extremely important to understand that competitive landscape to help you realize, you're all the competitors, here's a number of people searching for my type of business online and using all these different types of keywords. Is it worth it to go after this particular market? Oh, no, the market's too small. No one's searching for underground water leak detector. There's so few people. Geez, I should not spend a whole lot of money at that. Or, hey, I've got a retail store in the mall and I'm selling women's fashions. I want as many eyeballs on my website as I can possibly get. I needed exposure. And then you've got to say, okay, is that exposure worthwhile? Should I throw $1,000 $2,000 $5,000 a month at it? What can I do myself? You know, how are people really searching online?

Marisa Huston  8:02  
It sounds to me based on what you're saying that there's a lot of consideration that you have to put into it and it's all unique based on your business and your situation. And that's why it's critical that when you are considering SEO, let's say you decide you wanted to outsource that responsibility, that the person that you talk to really consults with you. So I would imagine that the first step is to really understand your client, and that they explain what their expectations are. And you can kind of also give them your assessment of what to expect so that then they're not blindsided or under the impression that anybody can say that they're professional SEO person, and you just give them a monthly fee and no matter what they're going to get you on the front page. It's not that cut and dry isn't it?

Alf Gizzo  8:50  
It certainly isn't. And a lot of companies wasted a lot of money executing on that plan. It gets back to what is that competitive environment? How many people in the public are actually search for your business? Is it worthwhile to spend. And nowadays, we want our information so fast. And so Google is still 90% of all research. And when we're searching especially for a local small business, whether it's a hair cutter or a dry cleaner, or particular type of store retail business, we just want to know Okay, where is it at? What's their hours of operation? And what's the phone number? What are their reviews? So we're searching specially for a service or retail business that is near us graphically that we're going to go and use we want to know what are the reviews? So when we go and do a Google search, Google Map provides us with that information right on the first page of Google and that is Google Maps. You'll see a box. It'll pop up on the first place with a little extra map at the very top of the box and then three or four different businesses that are listed and you can see their star reviews that are there. You can go to read the reviews. And that's how we choose local businesses. That's how we get engagement. And it's so easy to be in the hunt for those searchers that are searching for your business. Because so many other businesses that are competing with you are probably not spending the time that they could themselves to dance with Google. I say dance with Google, because Google Maps listing is generated from another program within Google called Google My Business used to be called Google Places. Now it's Google My Business. And that profile has been expanded over the years to include grow your business, assisting your offers to the business, the service type, the categories, the product, and all those things can be listed right there. And it's coined a new phrase. And we've not talked about this, Marisa. But it's called Zero Click Search. And what that means is that people type in a search term, dry cleaner near me, or just dry cleaner, and Google looks at your location, and they tell you, show you the list of dry cleaners near you. And I can go to the Google Map Square, click on one of those businesses read the reviews, and the times their hours of operation, all the information, I need to make a decision to use that dry cleaner without ever going to their website. So I never click through to the website. That is Zero Click Search.

Marisa Huston  11:33  
A Zero Click Search is what you're calling it.

Alf Gizzo  11:36  
Yeah. So it's even more important not to spend the time and money and energy and cycles, improving your website, so much as boy if you're a local small business, and you're providing a service, contractor type of service or your retail business offering a product or service you that's where you've got to be. Those reviews are trusted by us as we look for the business that we're searching for. We read the reviews, we read to see, whether the business has replied to the reviews, thank they're good reviews, or they've explained their negative reviews, and then we can watch the frequently asked questions. There's so much information there that most businesses are just not taking advantage of. And when you don't take advantage of all the information that Google allows you to place there Google doesn't reward you with the highest position on the map page. Now if I put in dentists near me, I mean, there's so many dentists that there's three listed, but then I could click the more and I could see probably 20 or 40, different dentists. And they're all listed ones at the top, and the ones at the bottom. The ones at the top probably have the most reviews, the most five star reviews, the most frequently asked questions. And there are a lot of different techniques that you can use to give Google fresh information. Google will reward those businesses in the Google My Business profile to give them fresh and current information.

Marisa Huston  13:06  
More on SEO when we return. What turns tap water plus a capsule of salt, water and vinegar into a gentle cleaner and disinfectant that is EPA approved against COVID-19 and kills 99.9% of germs. Force Of Nature Cleaner does. I love using it so much so that I partnered with them as a brand ambassador, to share my discovery with you. To learn more about this product and their 100% Happiness Guarantee. Click on my affiliate link in the show notes or website to access your promo code let Force Of Nature know I sent you and help support the show. And that just boils down to why it's super important to decide whether or not you even want to get involved in this yourself or if you just want to hand it over to somebody who has already experienced everything to do for example with your business. So they kind of know what to look for, what to anticipate. The expense related to SEO is tied to the business, whatever requirements. You know, there are businesses like dentists, for example, that are going to cost a lot more to get further up the page rank than a business that is very unique and doesn't really have a whole lot of competition. How should people figure out whether it's a good investment for their own business?

Alf Gizzo  14:26  
Well to act like their customer. Like a potential person looking for their own business. Whether they're a nutritionist, or they're looking just to get their teeth clean. Like if you're a dentist, there's so much competition, it's going to cost more to compete in that area. The dental offices that are the larger ones have the funds to be able to expand on their Google My Business and their website and they're Search Engine Optimization. And it may be very hard to compete in that area and you really have to analyze whether you're going to get a return on your investment when you when you go after it. Or, like you said, Marisa one of those quite unique businesses, like a client of mine is an independent dental hygienist. Well, there are so few of those. But there are real benefits to using an independent dental hygienist. There's so little competition. She doesn't need to do very much and she's going to be on the first page of Google, for her surrounding community, in the Google Map section. It just needs to have five star reviews, and maybe post a teeth whitening offer and that's about it. So if your a unique business in your category like a dental hygienist, or underground water leak detection, there are so few competitors in your field then you don't have to spend a lot of money on search engine optimization. You're gonna be at the top because there are just so few businesses doing what you do.

Marisa Huston  15:49  
So then is it something that you recommend that people do themselves? How do they even get started? Like, how do they determine if it's something they want to research on their own first, before they call a professional? What are options that are available for people to learn about SEO?

Alf Gizzo  16:05  
There are a lot of different options. There are a lot of resources online. But the danger of using an online class, a YouTube video that you might watch, is that it's not specific to your business category. You really don't ever know from any of those online courses, how many people are searching for your business? If you're talking to somebody like me, that can go out and research? Oh, there's only 20 person a month that are searching for your business? There's no point in spending a lot of time and energy on SEO or even learning it. Or, hey, there's 2500 people a month that are searching for your business online, and they're all going to your competitors. What do we got to do? How much should we spend? What is the return on the investment to really get those eyeballs to our listing and get that engagement? What's going to make us unique to get us to pop online, we get more engagement, but not. So it's really looking how many people are searching? What are the competitors? How many competitors do I have? How are they positioned? How are they using Google My Business? What do their websites look like? What do I need to do to compete in that marketplace? So you really need to speak to an SEO expert that can help you through that in an inexpensive way. There are so many of us out there.

Marisa Huston  17:16  
And then from there, you can decide, okay, well I can do this piece, or maybe I want to learn a little more before I hand it completely over, or this is way over my head. It's a complicated situation and I think I want to let an expert deal with it.

Alf Gizzo  17:31  
That's right. And you learn that from that first discovery call with an SEO marketing expert that can really guide you through those issues, and advise you and then you can say, okay, I think this is worthwhile. I really need to take my business to the next step and I could make a lot more sales get a lot more customers if I utilize my Google My Business more appropriately. Okay, how can I learn to do that myself? And your advisors, like, a person like me would say, yeah, you can do it yourself. All you need to do are these things. Now as small business people we all know, we're all so busy with everything on our plate, maybe they want to, you know, hire somebody to do those things for them. I've even trained that nephew was a businessman to do it all for that particular business. So there are a lot of different aspects. It's not that complex. You don't need to learn to code or anything like that. It's just providing a lot of fresh information. Very similar to someone who has a Facebook business page, and they post to that Facebook business page once or twice a week information about their business or what they're doing. You do the same thing with Google My Business and provide fresh content. And there's different ways to do that, and some techniques to maximize your exposure with that. But that's what I get into in my Insiders Top Ten Tips.

Marisa Huston  18:46  
Are their workshops? Are there places where people can go and attend a basic course to give you a general overview of what is required, if you wanted to try and do some of it yourself for your business?

Alf Gizzo  19:00  
There are free classes on YouTube, or you can pay for an online class. But then it won't be specific to your individual business. So you know, I teach a class which is a 90 minute Google My Business, which is customized for that business, or specific business. Here, this is exactly what you need to do. This is exactly how you need to do it. This is exactly how you can optimize your Google My Business profile listing for your specific business niche. And then they're off and running once they have that.

Marisa Huston  19:29  
So the difference between going on line and looking for a general course is that it's not specific to their needs and having a really good understanding of what is happening with their website, with their business in their current situation is going to enable you to then give them very customized solutions. 

Alf Gizzo  19:50  
Right. And even the Google My Business profile that you fill out isn't the same for every business. Restaurants have different options. Service businesses, contractors and summer camps have different options. Health Care have different options. So understanding how to take advantage and how to utilize those options wouldn't be covered in a generalized. 

Marisa Huston  20:08  
When we're talking about SEO, we're essentially trying to get found easier by whoever is looking for our service or what it is that we offer. But after a business gets found, they have to respond because it doesn't matter how many people you bring to their website, if there is no opportunity for people to engage, or perhaps your website is very unprofessional, it doesn't have easy information to find, they'll drop off and all this effort that you put in to bring people to your site does not convert, and then therefore, you're not getting any sort of return on investment. Because the whole point of this is to get more customers to build your business.

Alf Gizzo  20:49  
Well, that's exactly right. And you hit upon two different silos. You've got the Google Maps, the Google My Business silo that people engage with that never even go to your website. And then below that, on the first page of Google, you have the organic search results, not the paid ads. That's where your website is listed. And that is being there on the first page of Google you've got to say, okay, who are my competitors there? I'm a plumber. Yelp is there, Angie's List is there, HubSpot is there, the Better Business Bureau is there. How can I ever elevate my website above those huge platforms to be on the first page of Google? Well, the answer is you can't. You probably shouldn't even try. Having that expertise to guide you is really important. And just like you're saying, you have to be ready to accept those customers that are going to call. Google My Business has a messaging function. People can text your business right away, to find out if you are available or book an appointment on a calendar. 

Marisa Huston  21:49  
There needs to be a plan of action when you finish driving people to your location, because it would be similar to walking into a store and you want to go shopping, but there's no one there. So how are you going to buy the stuff and pay for it and do business with a business that is empty? Nowadays, the websites are not just pages anymore. They really need to be an interactive platform for people so that when they do get there, then they know how easy it is to talk to somebody. They might have a question. So especially now, where we're really doing everything online now, it's super critical that people feel like when they get somewhere, it shouldn't be difficult for them to engage with that business so that they can get whatever assistance they're looking for.

Alf Gizzo  22:39  
That's right. And going back to building the business case and doing the marketing study, is it worthwhile? What would be the return on investment if I hire a company and be available for a live chat 24/7, that would improve the engagement? Maybe I can't be there. I'm a plumber and my head stuck underneath the sink somewhere I'm doing a plumbing job. I can't answer the question. I can't engage with a client that wants to hire my service right now. So you got to have those backup systems. Able to handle that engagement. We are also anxious to get answers to our questions, and we want it now.

Marisa Huston  23:13  
And the other thing is be wary of people making SEO claims that sounds too good to be true. It's not rocket science but it's not magic either. We need to really understand the situation so that we can identify what the best move is for you and your goals and your objectives for your business. That being said, I wanted to go over your top two tips that you can share with our listeners in terms of what they can do themselves to build more efficiency when it comes to their SEO.

Alf Gizzo  23:45  
We'll I think one of the first ones is the posting feature that Google allows you to have in your Google My Business listing. Now getting back to that remember Zero Click Search, trying to convince that potential customer to utilize your services over your competitors. And the way you can engage with them is through this posting pieces. There are four different types of posts. One is a what's new, one is an event, one is a brand new product offering or then another special service offering. The what's new post last for seven days and then it kind of goes away. Just something timely about what you're doing with your businesses. Some new feature that your benefiting, that you're offering. So it's similar to a Facebook post. It drops down after a while as you continue posting. 

Marisa Huston  24:37  
By posting you're basically bringing more relevance and showing them that you are active in that space so that then you get rewarded by doing that.

Alf Gizzo  24:46  
That's right. And you can post an image with that or you can post a 30 second video. So maybe you videoed a customer giving you a video review with your cell phone after you finish the job. And you can post that 30 second video of a review of a customer right there in the Google post. And one of my other big tips is to always include a call to action, that, you know, you're letting the consumer, guiding them by the hand to give them something that they need to do next, Google provides you within all the posts, a button at the bottom of the post, learn more, book now, you know book on a calendar, retrieving an offer, sign up for an event. You're just taking them by the hand and leading them to your calendar, or booking or buying a book that you're promoting right now. And they never go to your website. You know the button may take them to a page on your website, make the purchase, or they come directly to Amazon to buy the book, but they never necessarily have to go to your website homepage.

Marisa Huston  25:46  
So the website is an additional flyer of information. They can go there and say, oh, I want to learn more...Is this company legit? Or how long have they been in business? So it's more of like an additional reference but like you said, in terms of taking action and trying to talk to somebody perhaps or if maybe you already got good reviews, and you know about the company, and you just wanna contact them, you can literally do it without ever going to the website.

Alf Gizzo  26:15  
That's right. And Google is providing all that information to the Google consumer, the person who's using Google. They want to be the predominant search engine. They don't want to be using Yahoo. They don't want to be using Bing. They want you using Google. They don't want you using DuckDuckGo. They want you using Google. So they can sell more advertising right, to the people who do buy paid ads. So the more information they can provide you, you're going to keep coming back to Google search, and you're not going to use those other search engines.

Marisa Huston  26:42  
Generally speaking, all of these platforms want you to stay inside their world. So anytime you're posting something that has a link that makes the visitor go somewhere else outside of that platform, that is not good. They don't like that, at all. They want to keep you there. And so the key is to know that because then if you know that, then you can hopefully address it so that you don't end up getting dinged for it or not getting the kind of results that you're looking for and you're wondering why that is. It's because you're essentially doing what they don't want you to do, which is get them somewhere else.

Alf Gizzo  27:20  
Once they're Google person doing the search, they don't even want you to leave Google to go to your website. They want you to stay right there.

Marisa Huston  27:27  
This has been amazing information that really helps us not only understand how SEO works, that it's not a magic formula, that there's a lot to consider. But it's also not that complicated if you really want to dive into it and learn some important things that you can do for your own business to maximize SEO. I'd like you to share with us how to get a hold of you and learn more about your services.

Alf Gizzo  27:56  
I think the best is my website. My company name is Arrivo which is Italian for arrive, www.arrivodigitalmarketing.com. And my email address [email protected]. And that's the best way to get a hold of me.

Marisa Huston  28:12  
Alf, I so appreciate you sharing all this with us today. Thank you for being here.

Alf Gizzo  28:18  
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. It was a total pleasure.

Marisa Huston  28:21  
Are you maximizing Google My Business for your business? Send us a tweet at LBO Podcast. Thanks for listening and thanks to Alf Gizzo for joining us on the show. If you have a question or comment for a future episode, all you have to do is go to www.speak pipe.com/lbovm or click the link in the show notes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show, please visit www.liveblissedout.com. to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!